A mouse tail appears!

Before

After

My field mice are coming along very nicely.   Now that I've added in the detail of the husk, you can clearly see that the pink strips are not (as I originally thought) part of the husk of the wheat, but a cute mouse tail curling around the sheath.

After

Before

Yay, knitting progress!  Last week it felt like my sweater had barely moved despite my spending several nights doing a line or two - but this week, despite the abundance of Christmas parties at wrok and home, I've been able to dedicate some serious stitching time and almost doubled what I had last week.  I'm only a little way away from finishing the front too now! I'm very excited.  Depending on whether I get the chance to knit on the train, I might even have the piece finished by Christmas (and get to wear it!).

December Updates

First of all, I bought a beautiful bunch of flowers from the reduced bin on Tuesday after work, and this is how they look today (Sunday) with only a bare minimum of TLC.

As you can see, I've put them next to my monitor, on my desk, because they give me so much joy (and it's nice to glance away from pixels and see something beautiful).

I know they won't last forever, because they are cut flowers and all, but personally I think I got my £1.25 out of them.  I even took a stem into work to have on my desk there too.

Harvest Mice

Before

After

I bought a few things shown in the photo below to help me cross-stitch:

1. A 'scrolling' frame
This is awesome. The set up was a little confusing (I don't know what to do with the metal-circle-with-a-hole-missing for a start!) but once constructed it works really well. You stitch the fabric to the wooden poles top and bottom, then centre the part you want to work on in the middle. It's really sturdy, and seems to leave a lot fewer marks than the hoop frames I've used previously.

2. A desk stand for said frame
I'm not so keen on this. It holds the frame relatively well, given that the frame is the top-end of acceptable sizes listed, but it's not a very good height when placed flat on my desk. I find myself straining to reach my work. Tieing off and cutting threads is also an issue - I have to align myself with the fabric where before I could just turn the frame over! However, it is allowing me to try out cross-stitching with both hands; that is, one above the fabric where I can see it (my non-dominant) and the other underneath.
3. A chart clip.
This is quite cool, as it allows me to leave the chart out with the stitching. I haven't included the chart in the photograph, but the cardboard shown is where it normally rests; the clip did not come with this, but without it the chart flopped gracefully to an angle I could not read the symbols at.

Altogether not a bad haul from the Knitting and Stitching Show in Harrogate.

The Jumper

I've done so much work on this!  When I started the last time I posted, I'd only done maybe twice of the current piece on the needle - now I've done a whole back, and half the process again on the front!  I feel amazing.

I did decide to do the jumper instead of the cardigan; this is because I looked at the cardigan specific pattern and chickened out...

One of my housemates is a midwife for the local hospital, so once I've finished this jumper, I will start making a baby hat.

I hope you're well,